Red wine chickpeas & roasted peppers, with a ‘pinch’ of chorizo
Riverford keeps delivering these outrageously attractive long sweet peppers in our weekly veg box and we’ve challenged ourselves to stuff them and roast them with a different filling each time. Piedmont roasted peppers came first, followed by these Mexican rice & bean filled peppers, and now these guys! Seen as Riverford sources these organic peppers from Almeria in Spain we couldn’t resist bringing a little Spanish flare to the party.
Red wine in cooking is all too often reserved for big meaty dishes and we miss it; the depth and gravitas it lends a dish is awesome, and we’ve long been keen to explore its use in a vegcentric dish…
As you may well know, chorizo braised in red wine is a classic tapas dish, and it has directly inspired this recipe. We’ve “vegcentric-ified” the proportions of meat, as your would expect, and used only three very thin slices of chorizo per person which is just enough to lend the dish that unctuous texture and richer mouthfeel. The physical ‘bulk’ of the dish comes from chickpeas. Katy calls this adding just “a pinch of meat” as the animal protein is being used much like a seasoning rather than a core ingredient.
Vegcentric.
It’s all about veggies at the centre and animal protein - if one chooses to eat it - very much on the periphery of the diet. “Less meat, better meat”, as we say! This Suffolk Salami Co chorizo is just that. Lane Farm is part of the RSPCA assured pig scheme and the porkers are happily reared outdoors with plenty of free rein; the resulting cured meat is dry, flavoursome and very tender rather than being greasy or chewy. By October 2021 all the electricity used at Lane Farm will be generated using renewable energy - incredible.
Pinch of meat.
For other ‘pinch of meat’ dishes please see our Roasted Butternut & butterbean stew which is ‘seasoned’ with a smidge of nduja, and our Roasted winter green pasta dish, with anchovy, chilli & lemon.
And the flavour hack?
Those anchovy breadcrumbs, again!, though this time with black olives in place of the capers - an umami powerhouse! And we recommend topping this dish with some pickled chillies at the table.
Prep time (including hob cooking): 35 mins
Cooking time (in oven): 22-25 mins
Recipe serves: 2
Ingredients:
For the peppers:
1 brown onion
2 stalks celery
2 tbsp olive oil
pinch of salt
2 cloves garlic
4 sprigs rosemary
½ red chilli
6 slices chorizo
1 tsp paprika
1 tbsp tomato paste
1 tsp caster sugar
1 tin drained chickpeas
2 tsps baby capers
250 ml / 1 cup red wine
2 long sweet peppers
For the crumb:
2 tbsp olive oil
2 anchovies
1 clove garlic, minced
12 pitted black olives
8 tbsp coarse sourdough breadcrumbs
Method:
If you are making this dish in one fell swoop start by preheating the oven to 190 degrees and have an oven rack near the top. Some notes on batch cooking and prepping ahead are included at the bottom.
Dice the onion and celery; heat 2 tbsps of olive oil in a large frying pan and sauté gently for 8 minutes to soften and lightly caramelise. Add the salt now too.
Meanwhile, finely slice the garlic, strip the rosemary leaves from their stalks and finely chop, finely dice the red chilli, and chop the chorizo into thin strips. After 8 minutes add these to the pan, stir well, and continue frying for 4 minutes.
Next add the paprika, tomato paste and sugar, stir well and fry off for 1 minute.
Finally, add the drained and rinsed chickpeas, 2 tsps of baby capers and the red wine. This will come to the simmer fairly quickly. Allow everything to simmer and braise very gently for 20 minutes during which time the flavours will mingle and concentrate.
In a separate frying pan gently heat 2 tbsps of olive oil and add the anchovies. Keep the heat low and allow these to ‘melt’ and disintegrate into the oil. After 1 minute add the minced garlic and continue cooking very gently. Finely chop the black olives then add these to the pan along with the breadcrumbs. Fry for 1 minute, just until the oil is absorbed and everything is well mixed. Turn off the heat.
Halve the pepper lengthways and peel out the white pith and seeds. Rub the peppers inside and out with 1 teaspoon of olive oil and set these in a suitably sized roasting dish.
After 20 minutes the chickpeas and red wine will have reduced and concentrated; they should look glossy, juicy and saucy, yet not too watery. Fill the peppers generously with the chickpeas and be sure to scrape every last scrap of flavour from the pan. Scatter over the black olive crumb, and pop this in the preheated oven for 22-25 minutes until golden and crispy on top.
Serve hot from the oven with a dressed green salad, or some wilted greens; we enjoyed this with steamed Cavolo Nero dressed simply with olive oil and lemon juice, and a few generous spoonful of pickled chillies.
Batch cooking or making ahead?
The braised chickpeas can be made in advance if you wish. We suggest doubling the ‘stew’ part of the recipe and freezing half to recreate this dish again a month down the line. If you do the same with the crumb all you’ll need to buy is 2 peppers and you’ve got yourself a delicious meal with absolutely zero prep!
If you’re starting the roasting process with a stew that’s been prepped ahead it’s likely to be room temp or chilled from the fridge, and in which case roast the stuffed peppers for 30 minutes rather than 22-25 minutes.